Proof of Alien Life Coverup? "Scientific study" ignores evidence of it's own hypothesis

a reply to: Totemic

Oh the irony.

So here we have scientists doing very speculative research, and the UFO/alien crowd decrying it.

Shouldn't you guys be actually most supportive of such studies, independent of the result/interpretation?

Too bad they didn't look for flying saucers I guess...

PS:
In my opinion they should have avoided the "advanced civilizations" hypothesis and just looked at IR profiles of galaxies in general. Because that is the interesting part imho, even without aliens getting involved.

This is another mainstream (tabloid) media article on the same search for infrared excess in WISE data and it shows just how the media can spin the results of science they barely understand into eye popping headlines....


Mirror.co.uk: "Have we found alien life? Astronomers discover 50 galaxies that may be home to advanced civilisations"

smh.....

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: Totemic

Oh the irony.

So here we have scientists doing very speculative research, and the UFO/alien crowd decrying it.

From what I can tell UFO/alien crowd often bashes science because a lot of them have either a poor understanding of it or no understanding of it. A walk through most UFO conventions will tell you all you need to know about that and a walk through most UFO conventions will tell them all they need to know about extraterrestrial life because the speakers have all the answers (even though they have little if any evidence to give those answers).

Shouldn't you guys be actually most supportive of such studies, independent of the result/interpretation?

Too bad they didn't look for flying saucers I guess...

Yep.

PS:
In my opinion they should have avoided the "advanced civilizations" hypothesis and just looked at IR profiles of galaxies in general. Because that is the interesting part imho, even without aliens getting involved.

Well others have done exactly that. But these particular researchers were looking for a specific IR excess which would be due to advanced civilizations harnessing most of the power of the stars in those galaxies.

Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

AS always, you're so kind and open minded. Cheers!

There has been life on this planet for something like 3,000,000,000 years.

There has been intelligent life on this planet that could theoretically be detected from other planets for about 100 years.

People often confuse "life" with "intelligent life".

I doubt you will find many scientists - at NASA or elsewhere - who are not pretty sure that life exists elsewhere in the universe and may even be abundant. I would not be surprised if we find it elsewhere in our solar system and even strong evidence it exists on exo-planets within the next 20 years, as NASA predicts (unless, of course, we are all wrong).

But so far, there is no evidence that "intelligent life" - that has existed on Earth for around 200,000 years and been detectable as such - due to our radio transmissions etc - for little more than 100, out of over 3,000,000,000 years, exists anywhere else.


Note: I accept the strong argument that so far there is no evidence whatsoever that "intelligent life" exists on Earth either. I am often inclined to agree.

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

AS always, you're so kind and open minded. Cheers!

The fact remains, the OP was dead wrong.

There is nothing contradictory going on here.

The NASA scientists stating they're confident we'll find at least simple (microbial) alien life within the next 10-30 years had nothing to do with the null results of a study looking for Dyson Sphere building supercivilizations.

The two are not mutually exclusive anymore than saying: "I'm confident that if I wait 10-30 mins next to this highway I will see a car go by." and then saying "I've searched for a Tesla on this highway but none drove by."

The second statement does not contradict the validity of the first.

An open mind is great, but an open, logical and sound mind is better.

originally posted by: AndyMayhew
There has been life on this planet for something like 3,000,000,000 years.

There has been intelligent life on this planet that could theoretically be detected from other planets for about 100 years.

People often confuse "life" with "intelligent life".

I doubt you will find many scientists - at NASA or elsewhere - who are not pretty sure that life exists elsewhere in the universe and may even be abundant. I would not be surprised if we find it elsewhere in our solar system and even strong evidence it exists on exo-planets within the next 20 years, as NASA predicts (unless, of course, we are all wrong).

Exactly. Star for you.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

AS always, you're so kind and open minded. Cheers!

The fact remains, the OP was dead wrong.

There is nothing contradictory going on here.

The NASA scientists stating they're confident we'll find at least simple (microbial) alien life within the next 10-30 years had nothing to do with the null results of a study looking for Dyson Sphere building supercivilizations.

The two are not mutually exclusive anymore than saying: "I'm confident that if I wait 10-30 mins next to this highway I will see a car go by." and then saying "I've searched for a Tesla on this highway but none drove by."

The second statement does not contradict the validity of the first.

An open mind is great, but an open, logical and sound mind is better.

But your being intentionally misleading and mis-directing. This is a known technique to avoid a direct debate.

This was said...

"The researchers used information from NASA’s WISE orbiting observatory to look for energy radiating away as heat. “The idea behind our research is that if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization’s technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths,” says Jason T. Wright, a Penn State University professor who initiated the Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies Survey.

Then it was said.

"We found about 50 galaxies that have unusually high levels of mid-infrared radiation. Our follow-up studies of those galaxies may reveal if the origin of their radiation results from natural astronomical processes, or if it could indicate the presence of a highly advanced civilization."

Then it was said.

In any case, Wright said, the team's non-detection of any obvious alien-filled galaxies is an interesting and new scientific result. "Our results mean that, out of the 100,000 galaxies that WISE could see in sufficient detail, none of them is widely populated by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in its galaxy for its own purposes. That's interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations, if they exist. Either they don't exist, or they don't yet use enough energy for us to recognize them," Wright said.

This last Paragraph seems ti discount the middle paragraph and scope of the experiment or paper.

He should have said. We have found 50 interesting candidates for further study that could harbor intelligent life...or maybe something even less biased. He basically discounted the possibility of alien civilization even though his research showed the possibility as expressed in his theory.

That's all I'm saying, but of course I don't know how any of this works and must deflect to your superior intellect. Still wondering why you brought up microbial life forms in this thread though? if I was only a little bit stupider I could live in bliss without any questions. LOL

But your being intentionally misleading and mis-directing. This is a known technique to avoid a direct debate.

Yes I agree amazing! Selective quoting leaving the rest of my thoughts out which were pretty much in agreement. Although JadeStar is a professional in the field, and I am clearly not.

originally posted by: game over man

Or in other words, the technology that exists to search for extra terrestrial life, requires every single planet, moon, all solar systems, in the entire galaxy to all be technologically advanced at the same time? Giving off a signal?

Might not be a cover up, unless they did discover a galaxy full of intelligent life and kept it from the public. Just a bad headline and poor technology on our end. They picked the easiest thing imaginable to observe/look for in the Universe if something so massive exists. Much harder to observe an exoplanet and see if it's technologically advanced. I just realized it has been mentioned many times that we have not yet launched telescopes to search for intelligent life on our known exoplanets. I think those are set to launch sometime in the 2020's.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: game over man
Great thread OP! S&F!

I agree the study was somewhat flawed from the beginning:

“The idea behind our research is that if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization’s technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths,”

Wright explains that when an advanced civilization uses large amounts of energy, this energy must be radiated away as heat. “This same basic physics causes your computer to radiate heat when it’s turned on.”

Basically they looked through 100,000 Galaxies to find a MASSIVE SPACESHIP?! Like a GALAXY SIZED spaceship? Umm ok...sounds like a fun job...

Not a spaceship.

A galaxy full of civilizations (or one galaxy-wide civilization) which harnesses most of the energy from each star by surrounding the stars with a shell called a Dyson Sphere.

Freeman Dyson, the mathematician and theoretical physicist who came up with the concept of the Dyson Sphere once coined a phrase anyone who is interested in the questions of what may be out there should keep in mind while setting up experiments to find ET:

"Don't just look for what is 'likely', look for what is detectable."

Please next time take into consideration everything I post, so I'm not mis-quoted?

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

AS always, you're so kind and open minded. Cheers!

The fact remains, the OP was dead wrong.

There is nothing contradictory going on here.

The NASA scientists stating they're confident we'll find at least simple (microbial) alien life within the next 10-30 years had nothing to do with the null results of a study looking for Dyson Sphere building supercivilizations.

The two are not mutually exclusive anymore than saying: "I'm confident that if I wait 10-30 mins next to this highway I will see a car go by." and then saying "I've searched for a Tesla on this highway but none drove by."

The second statement does not contradict the validity of the first.

An open mind is great, but an open, logical and sound mind is better.

But your being intentionally misleading and mis-directing. This is a known technique to avoid a direct debate.

This was said...

"The researchers used information from NASA’s WISE orbiting observatory to look for energy radiating away as heat. “The idea behind our research is that if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization’s technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths,” says Jason T. Wright, a Penn State University professor who initiated the Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies Survey.

Then it was said.

"We found about 50 galaxies that have unusually high levels of mid-infrared radiation. Our follow-up studies of those galaxies may reveal if the origin of their radiation results from natural astronomical processes, or if it could indicate the presence of a highly advanced civilization."

Which is correct.

Then it was said.

In any case, Wright said, the team's non-detection of any obvious alien-filled galaxies is an interesting and new scientific result. "Our results mean that, out of the 100,000 galaxies that WISE could see in sufficient detail, none of them is widely populated by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in its galaxy for its own purposes. That's interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations, if they exist. Either they don't exist, or they don't yet use enough energy for us to recognize them," Wright said.

This last Paragraph seems ti discount the middle paragraph and scope of the experiment or paper.

Read the details.

The key words in the above are "obvious" and "widely".

He should have said. We have found 50 interesting candidates for further study that could harbor intelligent life...or maybe something even less biased. He basically discounted the possibility of alien civilization even though his research showed the possibility as expressed in his theory.

In science we go to the most likely explanation in cases where something strange does not obviously lead us away from that.

For him to make the statement YOU want him to make he'd had have to have had more than something anomalous. So those 50 interesting candidates are not something you want to attach the words "alien civilization" to unless they are VERY good candidates.

A good example of this are all the candidate signals SETI receives. Do they regularlhy call press conferences to say they found "100 candidate signals which could be extraterrestrial intelligence"?

Nope. Because they are not going to do that for something as important as the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. You have to be very sure to have excluded every other possibility before making that declaration.

I understand in the UFO crowd every blur on a photo is a UFO but it doesn't work that way in science.

The natural explanation for the 50 candidates is IR excess due to natural processes. Nothing about them jumped out forcing anyone to say "HEY! THIS ISNT NATURAL!!!"

Clouds of dust and gas around young stars can cause the same IR excess in those 50 candidates. In order for them to be considered more interesting there would have to be something which could not naturally explain the IR excess in those 50 candidates.

Nothing reached that threshold.

Another example are the NASA Kepler planet candidates. Even though 90% of the planet candidates will be confirmed (the Kepler false positive rate is around 10%), NASA never calls them planets until they are actually confirmed to be planets.

That's all I'm saying, but of course I don't know how any of this works and must deflect to your superior intellect. Still wondering why you brought up microbial life forms in this thread though? if I was only a little bit stupider I could live in bliss without any questions. LOL

I brought up microbial life because the original post says this:

originally posted by: Totemic
www.popsci.com...

"Just a week after NASA scientists announced their certainty of finding alien life within the next 20 years,

That statement was part of the press conference in the video below on the search for microbial life. The statement is made in the last 5 or 10 minutes of this video:



So by the original post using that reference it became part of this conversation. And from what I can tell, your intellect, superior or not might have been unaware of that fact.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: amazing
Star and a flag and good analysis.

This in my opinion is a big issue. It doesn't matter if you think the premise of the Hypothesis is flawed. Good science is supposed to do that, you question something or have a theory and you create a testable hypothesis.

Then you have to live with the Data you get. These scientists are appearing to say "...well even though the evidence and data support our theory, we're still going to say the opposite, just because that's what we believe." Science isn't supposed to work like that.

You have a very poor understanding of science and the specifics of this research.

AS always, you're so kind and open minded. Cheers!

The fact remains, the OP was dead wrong.

There is nothing contradictory going on here.

The NASA scientists stating they're confident we'll find at least simple (microbial) alien life within the next 10-30 years had nothing to do with the null results of a study looking for Dyson Sphere building supercivilizations.

The two are not mutually exclusive anymore than saying: "I'm confident that if I wait 10-30 mins next to this highway I will see a car go by." and then saying "I've searched for a Tesla on this highway but none drove by."

The second statement does not contradict the validity of the first.

An open mind is great, but an open, logical and sound mind is better.

But your being intentionally misleading and mis-directing. This is a known technique to avoid a direct debate.

This was said...

"The researchers used information from NASA’s WISE orbiting observatory to look for energy radiating away as heat. “The idea behind our research is that if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization’s technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths,” says Jason T. Wright, a Penn State University professor who initiated the Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies Survey.

Then it was said.

"We found about 50 galaxies that have unusually high levels of mid-infrared radiation. Our follow-up studies of those galaxies may reveal if the origin of their radiation results from natural astronomical processes, or if it could indicate the presence of a highly advanced civilization."

Which is correct.

Then it was said.

In any case, Wright said, the team's non-detection of any obvious alien-filled galaxies is an interesting and new scientific result. "Our results mean that, out of the 100,000 galaxies that WISE could see in sufficient detail, none of them is widely populated by an alien civilization using most of the starlight in its galaxy for its own purposes. That's interesting because these galaxies are billions of years old, which should have been plenty of time for them to have been filled with alien civilizations, if they exist. Either they don't exist, or they don't yet use enough energy for us to recognize them," Wright said.

This last Paragraph seems ti discount the middle paragraph and scope of the experiment or paper.

Read the details.

The key words in the above are "obvious" and "widely".

He should have said. We have found 50 interesting candidates for further study that could harbor intelligent life...or maybe something even less biased. He basically discounted the possibility of alien civilization even though his research showed the possibility as expressed in his theory.

In science we go to the most likely explanation in cases where something strange does not obviously lead us away from that.

For him to make the statement YOU want him to make he'd had have to have had more than something anomalous. So those 50 interesting candidates are not something you want to attach the words "alien civilization" to unless they are VERY good candidates.

A good example of this are all the candidate signals SETI receives. Do they regularlhy call press conferences to say they found "100 candidate signals which could be extraterrestrial intelligence"?

Nope. Because they are not going to do that for something as important as the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. You have to be very sure to have excluded every other possibility before making that declaration.

I understand in the UFO crowd every blur on a photo is a UFO but it doesn't work that way in science.

The natural explanation for the 50 candidates is IR excess due to natural processes. Nothing about them jumped out forcing anyone to say "HEY! THIS ISNT NATURAL!!!"

Clouds of dust and gas around young stars can cause the same IR excess in those 50 candidates. In order for them to be considered more interesting there would have to be something which could not naturally explain the IR excess in those 50 candidates.

Nothing reached that threshold.

Another example are the NASA Kepler planet candidates. Even though 90% of the planet candidates will be confirmed (the Kepler false positive rate is around 10%), NASA never calls them planets until they are actually confirmed to be planets.

That's all I'm saying, but of course I don't know how any of this works and must deflect to your superior intellect. Still wondering why you brought up microbial life forms in this thread though? if I was only a little bit stupider I could live in bliss without any questions. LOL

I brought up microbial life because the original post says this:

originally posted by: Totemic
www.popsci.com...

"Just a week after NASA scientists announced their certainty of finding alien life within the next 20 years,

That statement was part of the press conference in the video below on the search for microbial life. The statement is made in the last 5 or 10 minutes of this video:

So by the original post using that reference it became part of this conversation. And from what I can tell, your intellect, superior or not might have been unaware of that fact.

But your bias led you to miss the most important part of this whole thread and why we're even having this conversation in the first place.

"The researchers used information from NASA’s WISE orbiting observatory to look for energy radiating away as heat. “The idea behind our research is that if an entire galaxy had been colonized by an advanced spacefaring civilization, the energy produced by that civilization’s technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths,” says Jason T. Wright, a Penn State University professor who initiated the Glimpsing Heat from Alien Technologies Survey.

They were looking for Alien Civilizations. They weren't just doing a random infrared heat research project and then the "UFO Crowd" (a derogatory generalization) hoped on board randomly shouting "These Anomalies must be because of Alien Civilizations"

You missed the whole point of the thread.

originally posted by: amazing
But your bias led you to miss the most important part of this whole thread

The premise of this thread (read the title) seemed to be to point out a non-existent contradiction.

Please enlighten me as to what you think the point of this thread was.

The examination through WISE data for evidence of large civilizations is not operating with a bias.. It was testing, through looking at observational data whether there was any obvious evidence to conclude such a civilization existed in the 100,000 galaxies they examined for a very specific type of IR excess.

So what's your point?

Great thread!

Yes, I think it is a hugely faulty assumption that civilizations that are tens of thousands or millions of years advanced from us would use tech that wastes heat like our 100 or so years of tech.

Funny also that they ignored findings that were the purpose of the study.

It is heartening though that science is starting to take the ETH somewhat seriously, even if it is baby steps.

It is funny that most on the planet would agree an ET interaction with earth would be more important than anything else (except consciousness IMO), yet it seems to be at the bottom of the list for science to look at.

To counter Sagan's quote I would offer:

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident" Arthur Schopenhauer

With the ETH we are obviously still at stage one, when it comes stage two may pass quickly but be interesting.

originally posted by: PlanetXisHERE
Great thread!

Yes, I think it is a hugely faulty assumption that civilizations that are tens of thousands or millions of years advanced from us would use tech that wastes heat like our 100 or so years of tech.

It's a faulty assumption to assume civilizations more advanced somehow get around the universal laws of thermodynamics. Of course you'd have to know what they are to understand why it's silly to assume any civilization would be 100% efficient.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
Whether or not the experiment is flawed in concept, what the OP said is the most important part, isn't it?

So they get the results=large number of nothing to see here... tiny number=hmmm, not sure here.

And they disregard the hmmmm? When the whole idea was to find the hmmm!

Hmmm!!!

Thanks OP S&F

The OP mischaracterizes what the researchers said concerning the 50 galaxies that showed promise:

Wright says they plan to look more closely to determine if the generated heat is from natural sources or from advanced civilizations. “This pilot study is just the beginning.”

The OP's bias against real science shows through when he scoffs at this, but not at the other statements made by the very same people.

Harte

I'm not at all anti-science.

The more I've dug on this, the more I have come to believe that the authors of the study are actually not as dismissive of the potential importance of their discovery as some of the articles made it seem.

The hypothesis was that a galaxy wide civilization would produce a level of waste heat that would be detectable in the infrared signature of the galaxy in question. This hypothesis was developed because it was testable by analyzing WISE data and because there is no known natural phenomena that would produce the same signatures.

They analyzed 100,000 galaxies and found 50 that exhibited the signatures they were looking for.

The data supports the original hypothesis. The study may indeed have just discovered 50 galaxies that show signs via the infrared that they are inhabited by galaxy wide civilizations.

This is massive news.

If the media and many "main stream scientists" didn't posses such an overwhelming bias against the ETH, this would have been major international news and Universities would be rushing to develop studies of the data to help verify the findings and seek to rule out other possible natural explanations.

The point of the thread, in addition to pointing out the importance of this finding, was to point out that though science is supposed to take great pains to eliminate bias when approaching data and testable hypothesis, on the subject of alien life, "main stream science" has polluted itself with a massive bias.

There was also a very coordinated effort by most media outlets to get ahead of this story with articles that completely denied even the possibility of the potentially Earth shattering implication of this study. That didn't materialize coincidentally out of the nether. Most main stream media not only posses the same hyper-bias against the possibility of intelligent, extraterrestrial life, but they go to great lengths to push that biased BELIEF on the public.

Both show an irrational bias that brings their supposed missions for truth into serious doubt.

If we have just detected 50 galaxy wide civilizations, it would answer the question "are we unique", which is a logically absurd BELIEF apparently espoused by many masquerading as main stream, unbiased scientists. We would know we are not unique. We would also know that only a small percentage of galaxies have thus far spawned galaxy wide civilizations.

What would it mean for our galaxy? Well, we have seen no signs thus far that there is any galaxy wide civilization that has widely colonized our galaxy. What would that mean? There are many possibilities. Are civilizations common, while interstellar travel requires science so difficult to obtain than most galaxies are home to very little interstellar travel? Are civilizations so rare that even though there are intelligences outside our galaxy, we are alone in our galaxy, as many of the supposedly science based debunkers here seem to believe? Could it be that civilizations are actually so common that most galaxies are filled with civilizations that keep each other in check?

There are many possibilities to explain what we know of our own situation. Remember, however, that what we don't know exponentially outweighs what he have the current to "know" with our current technology and bias-belief based science on the subject.

What's interesting is that the discovery of very rare galactic civilizations would be proof that other intelligent civilizations can exist and that interstellar colonization and travel are possible, but still potentially very difficult. The entire spectrum of BELIEFS about the situation in our own galaxy would still remain in the realm of possibility until proven otherwise. Why would the discovery of very rare space-faring civilizations outside of our own galaxy be so threatening to "main streamers", including the debunkers in this thread? Because their belief system isn't based on science or even logic, it's very much based on their own brand of "science-faith". Any proof of any life outside of Earth threatens their entire belief system. Even microbes on Mars and elsewhere in our solar system would expose the illogic of their beliefs that life is rare, or even unique to this planet.

In the early days of astronomy, The Church was the institution that would go to any lengths to preserve the belief that Earth, Man and Man's God were the center of the Universe. Today, it's faith pretending to be science that seems willing to go to any lengths to preserve the belief that Man is unique, and thus the Science of Man represents the pinnacle of scientific understanding in the Universe.

The debunkers are the modern "Flat Earthers" and the undiscerning UFO believers the magical thinkers who thought the edge of the horizon hid sea serpents, mere-folk and dragons. Those who were most willing to put their preconceived beliefs and biases aside and consider the situation with logic based open-mindedness, with an eye towards the growing body of evidence, were those that came to the truth most readily and had built the most accurate assumptions while absolute proof was still lacking.